NPS round 2 – Llangollen 30-31st May

With it being a new course I drove up on Thursday night so that I could walk it a few times. The rumour was it was steep with a few pedal strokes off the line just to get going. It was all true; turning up in the car park you could see that the hill was not overly big but it was very steep. The trees seemed to be clinging to the side.

I walked the course as many times as the light would let me. It seemed to me as though if you knew where the track went after each corner you would be able to get faster. It was as steep as it gets straight from the start. I literally had to climb up the course and slide down clinging on to trees to “walk” the course.

I met up with Dad Saturday morning at the venue and got practising the course. The que for the uplift and waiting to go down the course was very long mainly because so many people were falling off and injuries. I managed to get 7 runs in and that was without stopping. It was one of the best tracks I have ever ridden. Each section was just a shoot with a catch berm to hit and slow down at the bottom. It was just like skiing; just sideways the whole way trying to slow down and hitting pillows of dirt to slow down.

After practise I was invited along with Jason and Manon Carpintor to a bmx track in Wrexham. It was pretty awesome just to watch Manon and Jason show us how it’s done but I gave it a go.

When I got back we had dinner and I had my birthday cake;

I managed to get another couple of separated runs in Sunday morning at a push. The queue at the top of the course to go down was bigger than the queue at the bottom; and with the length of the queue at the bottom that’s quite a statement.
So it was down to qualifying; I had my fair share of sketchy moments that’s for sure but it was one of the final corners where I lost most of my time. The berm that was there before had been ruined and there was a loamy, wobblers line that head straight for a tree that I followed. I stopped before I hit the tree but lost loads of time. I cruised to the bottom and had some fun on the last jump and came through 5th. This gave me quite a bit of confidence for race runs. Here are a few pics of the weekend;

I held back quite a bit in my race run as I didn’t want to repeat my performance of round 1 and to be honest most of my nationals last year. I especially held back at the last corners so that I could get on the inside of the mistake I made in qualifying. I pedalled all the way to the finish this time though and managed to get a step on the podium. Not a bad result for my birthday but quite the different 18th from the usual.

Its Fort Will next weekend for me and a real test of my fitness level.

Thanks to Last, DMR, Rezurgence, Lifestyle Ford, 2026 distribution, Funn, Bell, Thor, KMC, Nike 6.0, Mojo suspension, and Shimano.